Spoilers Stranger Things - Season 5

[FPAlpha]

I thought the finale was okay. It was much longer than it had to be. At one point, I had paused it to get up when I thought I was near the ending, and it had 20 more minutes to go.

My wife who had made it much further through her reread of A Wrinkle in Time was surprised by how much material from the book was used in this last season. I'll comment more on that when I finish up my reread of the novel.

I am curious about the spin-off as they clearly end the series in the summer of 1989, so any new spin-off is going to be a 90s show. This should be interesting.

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

 

[bdub76]

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

Vampires became really popular in the 90s, so that's another approach they could take. I remember Forever Knight and Vampire: The Masquerade both being big deals in that decade. The Duffer Brothers do appear to be Stephen King fans as well, so seeing more horror in the next series seems possible since they have backed away from the SK adaptation.

 

[Mojochi]

My overall impression: It had good moments, which I think, more than anything, was the basic goal. They focus on writing moments, & that makes for good feelings, in the moment, but it's empty calories relevant to a fulfilling overall narrative, that TBH stretched out a story you could condense into a 5-6 hour trilogy, to a ballooned 43 hours screen time.

Its heart was in the right place, though. I just continued to find the writing (as I have the entire show) a bit facile, maybe even slightly sophomoric, leaning heavily on nostalgia, 1st from a time when its adult viewers, actors, & creators were children, & now even nostalgia for when its central cast were still children, 10 years ago.

It's imho something of a pleasant diversionary trifle overall, which boggles my mind that over 10 years, it had $950 million spent to make 42 episodes. (43 hrs run time) averaging out to over $22 million per episode & per hour of screen time. I don't dislike this. It was fun, but WOW that's a lot for what is basically kids stuff, that takes a lot of liberties with its story & audience.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I think you could compare the Mike reveal of what he thought happened to Eleven kind of like the end of the Dark Knight Rises and the debate as to whether Bruce Wayne did survive and if what we saw was just what Alfred hoped/would have liked to have happened.

Or from Black Sails several years back, when Silver tells a story about Captain Flint's fate that may or may not be true. Did he survive? Did he not? You decide. In my household, I've chosen one ending and my wife has chosen the other. We're both content with our versions of make believe.

 

[bdub76]

It's imho something of a pleasant diversionary trifle overall, which boggles my mind that over 10 years, it had $950 million spent to make 42 episodes. (43 hrs run time) averaging out to over $22 million per episode & per hour of screen time. I don't dislike this. It was fun, but WOW that's a lot for what is basically kids stuff, that takes a lot of liberties with its story & audience.

It appears that they flew Millie and crew all the way to Iceland to shoot a scene that lasted only a couple of minutes, so I'm not surprised by the cost.

Of course, there were scenes, where the finale looked really cheap with the wax like substance looking like icing that had hardened. These sets looked unnecessarily cheap.

 

[eschaton]

I wouldn't have called it bad but it was a bit of a stretch. As i and you have said to bring down the Mindflayer with the firepower they had looked and felt a bit ridiculous even if they tried to explain it away with the Hivemind concept.

It would have been more believable if the military also got into the Abyss somehow, saw what they were up against and went Broken Arrow in a panic calling everything in so that the Army could engage with actual real heavy firepower given our heroes an opportunity to sneak past somehow and engage Vecna himself.

I think making Kay & company uneasy allies following the events of Episode 4 would have made the end run much more interesting. Gives Linda Hamilton more to do, and as you said, gives them the firepower to maybe take the Mind Flayer down more realistically. Then they could've turned on the gang after Vecna was dead (or tried to "save" Vecna to be an experimental subject), which could result in Eleven still having roughly the same ending.

Though I can understand, from a character standpoint, the desire to have the endgame involve everyone on the team working together in the victory. Still, they didn't need to kill the Mind Flayer - they could've just trapped it in the Abyss (leaving the option of it out there for a sequel). I think a pitched battle between the group and like a half-dozen demos and demodogs would've worked better.

Ultimately, the team only had one bona-fide superhero in El. Kali died early in the encounter, and Will's powers didn't end up being as dramatic as Episode 4 proved. I wish he tried to hack the Mind Flayer rather than just doing a limb snap trick with Vecna again. Maybe he could've found the super-secret weakness, which then all the gang tried to hit? Basically making it a Death Star? I feel like going into the attack with finesse and intelligence rather than a big dumb battle would play more to their nerdy strengths.

Doesn't have to be, a prequel is also a possibility and they left a pretty big story opening for it.

The Duffer Brothers explicitly said a sequel, not a prequel, and that something in the epilogue hints at it. That pretty much means it's one of:

• Joyce and Hopper in Montauk (with the Byers popping in from time to time).
• Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin getting into (mis)adventures.
• The new kids (I think this is the least likely).

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

Remember the Duffer Brothers originally wanted to do an anthology show until Netflix shoved piles of cash at them. I think they would like to do a sequel as disconnected from the original Season 1 premise as possible.

 

[FPAlpha]

Remember the Duffer Brothers originally wanted to do an anthology show until Netflix shoved piles of cash at them. I think they would like to do a sequel as disconnected from the original Season 1 premise as possible.

Anything but a simple retread of the original concept.

And i'd be careful with DB statements like these, they have been known to misdirect publicly I figure we'll know soon enough once they and Netflix are ready to release some substantial information, which could well be a year or even two away and probably at a time when it's become an open secret when casting calls are going out and production crews are being put together.

 

[Mojochi]

You know, Max's tour thru Henry's highschool memory paints a picture of Joyce, Hopper, The Wheelers, and probably Steve Harrington's dad all being there with Henry in the 50s highschool, at a time that would've been some years after he'd gotten infected by the alien substance from the briefcase, as a young boy scout, & apparently some time before he became Brenner's science experiment, and yet I don't recall ANY of them ever even mentioning they knew a Henry, who more than likely would've already been being pretty weird, if he was about to draw the attention of nefarious military scientists. So much of this narrative was just washed over

By the time Eleven thrashes Henry into having to become Vecna, it's been like 25-30 years since he'd gotten the power, most of that time, living in Hawkins

 

[bdub76]

You know, Max's tour thru Henry's highschool memory paints a picture of Joyce, Hopper, The Wheelers, and probably Steve Harrington's dad all being there with Henry in the 50s highschool, at a time that would've been some years after he'd gotten infected by the alien substance from the briefcase, as a young boy scout, & apparently some time before he became Brenner's science experiment, and yet I don't recall ANY of them ever even mentioning they knew a Henry, who more than likely would've already been being pretty weird, if he was about to draw the attention of nefarious military scientists. So much of this narrative was just washed over

At some point, the scientist discover Henry's blood. No idea as to the particulars for that.

The military magically disappearing at the end was a big much.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Though I can understand, from a character standpoint, the desire to have the endgame involve everyone on the team working together in the victory. Still, they didn't need to kill the Mind Flayer - they could've just trapped it in the Abyss (leaving the option of it out there for a sequel). I think a pitched battle between the group and like a half-dozen demos and demodogs would've worked better.

I think people are overexaggerating the mind flayer's demise. It's natural state has always been portrayed as particles, not flesh. And the particles still looked animate enough to me when they were expelled from the kids' mouths. Seems to me this flesh suit was no different than the one from season 3, except being much larger, so I don't see any reason to believe it's any more dead now than it was then. All they've done here is kill Henry and completely severe the connection between Earth and the Abyss.

 

[theenglish]

Well I thought it was a good ending.

And mike had a point about El at the end. Those sonic weapons the military had pointed at El didn't seem to be doing shit.
Even one seems to nearly paralyse her with pian and they had half a dozen.

Also I think Hopper knows hence why he wasn't a damaged wreck like mike and that she told him telepathically like mike but with more detail. She told hopper the truth as unlike Mike he would understand why it would be dangerous to come after her. She may even had planned it with Hopper so that he acted as a distraction while she fled. Either way she had to get away from the US goverment.

Yeah. Also Kali was using her powers when she got "killed". I honestly thought that Mike's ending for El and Kali was advertised loudly in the actual scenes. I believe that El escaping was the originally planned ending and that Mike telling the story just makes it a little more poetic.

 

[Skywalker]

You know, Max's tour thru Henry's highschool memory paints a picture of Joyce, Hopper, The Wheelers, and probably Steve Harrington's dad all being there with Henry in the 50s highschool, at a time that would've been some years after he'd gotten infected by the alien substance from the briefcase, as a young boy scout, & apparently some time before he became Brenner's science experiment, and yet I don't recall ANY of them ever even mentioning they knew a Henry, who more than likely would've already been being pretty weird, if he was about to draw the attention of nefarious military scientists. So much of this narrative was just washed over

By the time Eleven thrashes Henry into having to become Vecna, it's been like 25-30 years since he'd gotten the power, most of that time, living in Hawkins

Henry got his powers in the early-to-mid 1950s and he didn't move to Hawkins with his family until 1959. He was a freshman in high school that year while Joyce and Hop were seniors, so they probably didn't know him very well. Apparently Joyce asked him to take a part in her play, but that doesn't necessarily mean she was close with him, she could have just thought he had the right look/demeanor for the part.

Henry didn't seem to really start exploring his powers in full until the Creels moved to Hawkins, and he wasn't in town for very long before he killed his family and Brenner showed up to take him. If I remember right, the official story was that the whole family died.

 

[theenglish]

Do you have any examples?

I don't have an example that comes to mind immediately, that's was I used the term "possible". You've got me thinking about it now and I'm going to look for it. Santa King did post a photo of an old Cole Porter record from the 30s that uses the expression "i've got my eyes on you".

I would hate it if they retread the ground, built up a new villain from the Abyss or somewhere else and a new gang has to basically repeat the whole show. That would be a major disappointment given how well the DB's envisioned the show and how good it was written.

I like doing a 90s show and making a left turn into a more episodic style show, like an X-Files style series.

Though I can understand, from a character standpoint, the desire to have the endgame involve everyone on the team working together in the victory. Still, they didn't need to kill the Mind Flayer - they could've just trapped it in the Abyss (leaving the option of it out there for a sequel). I think a pitched battle between the group and like a half-dozen demos and demodogs would've worked better.

This final battle was set up just like a D&D encounter where the party needs to work together to take down the much more powerful opponent. It is the same battle that they've performed table-top multiple times in the series.

Henry didn't seem to really start exploring his powers in full until the Creels moved to Hawkins, and he wasn't in town for very long before he killed his family and Brenner showed up to take him. If I remember right, the official story was that the whole family died.

What's the timeline there? Henry was very young when he killed his family so by high school he must have been living with a different family or a home, and he was probably looked at as the kid who suffered a horrible tragedy which would have excused any odd behavior on his part.

 

[Jason X-Mas]

I found the final episode a little better than most of the episodes in the shows final season but overall this has all been a terrible last season for the show. The show has lost all of it's Amblin Entertainment pastiche to become this bloated and confusing Sci-Fi spectacle that has no time for quiet or subtle character moments, beyond the the occasional cheery pep talk. The second screen approach also became so noticeable when the characters would have to stop ever 5 minutes to recap the plot.

I did get misty eyed though over some of the happy endings. Of course they can do that by appealing to people's love for the shows earlier and better seasons. The CGI is impressive even though it was overbearing as well.

 

[Skywalker]

What's the timeline there? Henry was very young when he killed his family so by high school he must have been living with a different family or a home, and he was probably looked at as the kid who suffered a horrible tragedy which would have excused any odd behavior on his part.

There was no different family. He was about 14 when he killed his family, and around eight when he gained his powers. When the Creels died (minus Victor), everyone thought Henry died with them, but in reality he was taken by Brenner.